XenoWars
XenoWars is a castle defence game crossed with a match3 puzzle. The simplistic block swapping is used to collect resources such as ability points, mana and gold, and also launch direct magic attacks at the enemy. Mana is what you use to buy units, which travel to the other side of the screen to destroy the enemy castle. Of course, the enemy has units too, so often they will be locked in combat across the middle ground of the screen. Gold is used to buy reinforcements between rounds. You’ll start off with small, weak units but you can spend the cash to buy new units or upgrade the current ones that you have. In addition, you can increase the power of the archers that automatically fire at the enemy, or enhance other abilities like regenerating mana. Stronger units cost more mana in game, and so it’s a good idea to have lower cost units upgraded so that you can build a resistance quickly. The controls can be a little fiddly at times. Whilst the swipe gestures for the match puzzle perform well, the elongated row of buttons at the bottom of the screen are very small and so errors can be commonplace. Our most common problem was hitting the pause button instead of the mana pool upgrade button in the bottom right corner. The developer is playing with a mouse in the video below, but with your thumbs it is tricky especially when playing the game at a pace.Gameplay is rather fun though even if the controls can be tricky. The constant need to find matches to assist you plays out nicely—it didn’t feel dull. Amassing a force to wipe out the enemy is also rather fun too, especially later on in the game. However, we’re slightly disappointed in the stick figure side that you control, especially when the enemy has a cool assortment of mages, wizards and dragons at its disposal. Plus, the game can be very repetitive especially as it takes an endless form. We think a campaign mode would help make XenoWars more compelling to play through. Graphically, it is fairly average stuff, minus a point for stick figures. We like the glowing particle effects that materialise when you clear a match, disappearing off into the battlefield or one of the textual labels in the interface. It’s also nice that you can make the match3 tiles simplified in the settings screen (example below), but the amateurish main menu screen leaves a lot to be desired. And whilst the sound effects are selected with a good amount of thought, the music fails to loop—so you’re stuck in game without the backing track. Happily iPod music is supported.XenoWars is just above average. The fusion of puzzle and strategy titles works well enough to see that you’re still playing through the game for a a good couple of dozen rounds. It won’t win any prizes for longevity, but it is good for 99¢. Grade: C, Good Though it’d be better without stick men, this game is a fun combination of two genres that doesn’t feel forced.